Hildegarde Naughton

We are doing a number of things in recruitment and retention. We have bursaries in place. We are opening up HSE panels. We have HSE advertising streams. We also have a number of fairs, including one in May where one of the top priorities was to recruit people and to introduce people to social care therapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. We have 150 extra therapists …

I assure Deputy Lawless that absolutely everything is being done. What is happening now is what I have just listed out. We also have domestic and international recruitment drives happening all the time, as we speak. We also have an expedited CORU registration process from this year. This is specifically for people who may have trained abroad and want to come here to work. We want to expedite this …

Deputy Lawless can come back to me afterwards.

I thank the Deputy. On 26 April 2023, the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, along with most of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act 2022, were commenced, replacing the wards of court system. That Act places individuals at the centre of decisions that affect them and provides for the necessary supports to enable persons with capacity difficulties to retain control ove…

As the Deputy was speaking, I was reminded of people in a similar situation who have come into my constituency office. Often they are parents who have a grown-up adult child. Their question is what will happen to their child when the parents pass away. We cannot always answer those questions, but they will be looked after. It is all about this forward planning and having the data. As the Deputy k…

Both Deputies have raised important points. For example, when somebody is leaving the school setting, there needs to be a transition. We are doing work in that regard. The person-centred plan has been developed with each person, his or her family and his or her support person, looking at ensuring that this person with a disability is making informed choices about what he or she wants to do, be it …

Ireland ratified the UNCRPD in 2018. Since ratification, Ireland's approach has been to ensure cumulative advancements over time. The programme for Government commits to delivering a new national disability strategy that will provide an overarching framework for advancing the State’s obligations under the UNCRPD. In advance of the strategy, work continues unabated across government to advance impl…

I will answer the Deputy's last question first. Housing and disability are absolute priority for the Government. We all know knocking on the doors in the general election campaign the importance of disability right across the sector. Last week, I attended the United Nations disability conference in New York. The Irish delegation travelled with leading disability groups from Ireland who have direct…

There has been, and there will continue to be, robust consultation with all the key stakeholders, disability groups and DPOs. To give the Deputy an example of our track record on that, for this disability strategy we had extensive public consultation, which concluded last year. That included 34 focus groups and almost 500 responses to a national questionnaire. We had town hall events in Dublin, Co…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. The overarching aim of the neuro-rehabilitation strategy is the development of neuro-rehabilitation services to improve patient outcomes by providing safe, high-quality, person-centred neuro-rehabilitation at the lowest appropriate level of complexity. It straddles acute hospitals and primary care as well as specialist community-based disability…

This is a new structure being rolled out. It has taken the team a little time to set up the structures. The funding was in place and they are now rolling out those teams across the country. We will complete the national roll-out of the HSE community neuro-rehabilitation teams. We will develop more regional inpatient rehabilitation beds as well, implement community-based, multidisciplinary rehabili…

I thank both Deputies. I am looking forward to my visit to An Síol tomorrow morning and to seeing the Deputy there. I know they are doing fantastic work there on the ground. I am visiting these services throughout the country. When I am in these services, I meet people who have acquired brain injuries. I see the results of road traffic accidents and the importance of these facilities on the ground…

I thank Deputy Coppinger for raising this important issue, which I will bring to the attention of the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan. I am taking this on his behalf. The enormous contribution made by migrant workers, particularly those working in the health sector, is recognised and valued by this Government. It is a central priority for the Minister that our immigration laws are fair and efficient…

I thank the Deputy. I, and the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, also recognise and acknowledge the contributions that migrants and their families bring to our economy and our society as a whole. The Minister's Department is committed to ensuring we provide legal pathways for economic migration that are fair, efficient and responsive to the needs of the economy. While the Minister cannot pre-empt the …

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He can be assured when I came into this role our CDNTs and that step change in disabilities service are an absolute priority. As he will know, we are working on a national disability strategy at the higher end where every single Department will have to feed in what they are going to do. Whether it is the Departments of Justice, Health, Social Protection, …

The Deputy's first question veered into another area, so the response to that is in the written reply. I am having pre-Estimate discussions with the Ministers for public expenditure and Finance for the upcoming budget. What we all need to see is an increase in the budget and support for our day, respite and residential services right across the country to ensure that there is a good geographical …

I thank the Deputies for raising this matter. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister for Transport, who has responsibility for overall policy and Exchequer funding relating to the national roads programme. Once funding arrangements have been put in place with TII, under the Roads Acts 1993 to 2015, and in line with the national development plan, NDP, the operation and management of individual…

I will raise the matter with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. Approximately €502 million of Exchequer capital funds has been provided to TII for national roads in 2025. In line with the NDP and Government policy, TII has sought to allocate national road funding to local authorities in a manner that seeks to achieve the following key outcomes: protection and renewal of the existing national ro…

The challenges and problems associated with the assessment of need process and the provision of services for disabled children, adults and their families have been illustrated in stark detail in this Chamber today. It is not acceptable that vulnerable people clearly in need of State support are left wanting. It is not acceptable that families are stressed and frustrated, and despair that the State…

I acknowledge the contributions of everyone here and assure them this issue of assessment of need is a top priority for me as a Minister of State with responsibility for disability who sits at the Cabinet table and indeed it is a priority for the whole of Government, as is the national disability strategy. As Deputies know there is a disability unit set up within the Department of the Taoiseach. W…

I welcome this opportunity to discuss the important issue of early learning and childcare. It is clear from the discussion so far that we all recognise the importance of early learning and childcare for children and their families as well as for society and the wider economy. In her opening statement the Minister, Deputy Foley, described the constituent parts of Together for Better - the Governme…

There is a huge priority in regard to recruitment and retention within children's disability network teams, CDNTs, right across the country. As the Deputy probably knows, there was an increase of 17% in the CDNT workforce from 2023 to 2024, which amounts to the recruitment of 272 whole-time equivalent staff. That said, we need to do much more. International and domestic recruitments processes are …

A children’s disability network team workforce survey was conducted on 16 October 2024. This survey captured staffing levels across various disciplines and grades, providing a snapshot of the current workforce across the 93 CDNTs. While this report only provides us with a snapshot in time, with recruitment having continued in the interim, it is the most comprehensive workforce report we have on CD…

Significantly, the CDNT vacancy rate has reduced from 29% in 2023 to 22% in 2024, a reduction of 7% nationally. The Deputy is correct regarding recruitment and retention. A lot of work is happening in that space. In order to achieve the staffing level improvements seen in 2024 and fill those vacancies, there were intensive domestic and international recruitment efforts across the HSE and section 3…

I will start with the last part of the question. We are working on a national disability strategy, which will be published before the summer recess. A high level of engagement is happening right across Government with my Cabinet colleagues, including the Minister, Deputy Foley, the Minister for Education, the Minister for Health, the Minister for Social Protection and the Minister for Transport. W…